The Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding the Entire Bible

The Bible Recap podcaster Cobble (Kiss the Wave) uses the premise of her show for this useful survey for Christians wishing to better understand the Bible. Cobble began the podcast to help people dealing with common mistakes in biblical interpretation, among them seeing the book as a to-do list, cherry-picking verses while ignoring others, and jumping to conclusions about what had been cherry-picked. Instead, she encourages readers to see scripture as “a story about God” that reveals God’s attributes, to read the Bible chronologically rather than in canonical order, and to keep questions open until one has read the Bible fully. Cobble sets out daily biblical reading assignments and for each supplies a plain-language summary with commentary drawing connections between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as a sidebar highlighting what the passage says about God’s character. While Cobble’s approach is conservative, it is not fundamentalist: she invariably uses male pronouns for God, glosses over Leviticus 18:22 as God prohibiting homosexuality, and describes the Bible as “100% true but not always 100% literal.” For readers with similar attitudes, this will provide a useful support for a daily Bible-reading practice. (Dec.)